Unlocking Ethical Storytelling for Nonprofit Success with Carly Euler

About the Guest(s):

Carly Euler is the Marketing Director at Memory Fox, a cutting-edge tech platform designed to assist nonprofits in gathering, organizing, and sharing impact stories. With significant experience in nonprofit work, Carly brings a profound understanding of authentic and ethical storytelling, aiming to revolutionize how nonprofits collect and disseminate narratives to bolster their missions and fundraising efforts.

Episode Summary:

In this spicey episode of Talking Shizzle, our host Taylor Wilson chats with Carly Euler from Memory Fox about the importance of ethical storytelling in nonprofit marketing. As they dive into what it means to collect and share stories ethically, they explore how nonprofits can balance authenticity with sensitivity to strengthen their branding and fundraising efforts. The discussion also touches on how Memory Fox is setting itself apart by embedding ethical storytelling principles into its platform, ultimately enhancing how stories are told and shared.

The episode provides a large amount of insights and practical strategies that nonprofits can adopt to ensure they engage in ethical storytelling. Carly explains the importance of obtaining informed consent, managing how stories are updated, and retaining transparency with storytellers. This conversation uncovers the potential benefits ethical storytelling can offer, including stronger community relations and more effective fundraising. Throughout, listeners are encouraged to consider how shifting towards ethical practices not only aligns with moral imperatives but can also lead to tangible benefits for nonprofits and their missions.

Key Takeaways:

• Ethical storytelling involves collecting and sharing stories without exploiting the people involved, focusing instead on authenticity and consent.
• Carly Euler explains that nonprofits can still raise significant funds using ethical storytelling practices, countering misconceptions that emotional distress-driven narratives are necessary for successful fundraising.
• Implementing processes such as informed consent and periodic follow-ups can enhance transparency and trust between storytellers and nonprofits.
• An ethical storytelling standards guide can unify team practices and ensure that all stories are handled consistently, fostering long-term trust and engagement.
• Memory Fox differentiates itself in the nonprofit space by integrating ethical storytelling into its platform, aiding organizations in aligning their marketing practices with ethical standards.

Resources:

• Memory Fox Website
• Carly Euler on LinkedIn

Explore this compelling episode in full to gain a comprehensive understanding of ethical storytelling and its impact on nonprofit sector marketing strategies. Stay tuned for more insightful discussions from the Talking Shizzle podcast, where innovation meets mindful business growth.

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Transcript

0:00:03 Taylor Wilson: Hey, hey, hey, all you lovely people out there. 

0:00:07 Taylor Wilson: I know you’ve got a lot going on in your day, and you have big dreams for your brand. 

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0:00:39 Taylor Wilson: Your business or your cause. 

0:00:42 Taylor Wilson: Check us out on the web at creativeshizzle.com now let’s get into it and talk some shizzle. 

0:00:51 Taylor Wilson: All right, what’s up? What’s up, everybody? I’m here with Carli Euler today, my good friend from Memory Fox. Not to be confused with Memory Horse, which I liked, your email yesterday, your April Fool’s email saying, we’re now Memory Horse. 

0:01:07 Carly Euler: We have been making that joke internally for months. Like, we think it’s, like, the funniest thing. And then we were like, wait, we could put this joke out for April Fool’s Day. It would be kind of a funny thing to do. 

0:01:19 Taylor Wilson: Yeah, I thought it was funny because at first, I mean, you read the subject line, and like, I’m gullible. So, like, it had me going for a minute, you know, And I was like, really? 

0:01:28 Carly Euler: I got so many replies of people that were like, I read it and what were you thinking? And then I realized it was a prank, and that was so funny, and you brightened my day. And I was like, oh, well, I hope I didn’t actually, like, ruin anybody’s day. 

0:01:40 Taylor Wilson: It was really funny. Good on you. Good on you. So I’m excited today to talk about ethical storytelling, and I want to first get your definition of ethical storytelling and get into a report that you did on ethical storytelling at Memory Fox recently. But first, give us, like, the quick rundown on what is Memory Fox? What do you guys do? Who is Carly? 

0:02:02 Carly Euler: Yeah, I’d love to. So I’m the marketing director at Memory Fox, and we are a tech platform that helps nonprofits collect, organize, and share impact stories. And what we really strive to do is provide a tech platform that will help people do the collecting and the sharing of sensitive stories at their nonprofit, ethically and authentically. Because, you know, we see in every single webinar that everybody’s ever taught that authenticity is the key to telling great stories. 

0:02:31 Carly Euler: And more and more often, we’re now seeing that we need to make sure that we are being ethical when we’re sharing and collecting those stories as well. So we have built specific features to be able to enhance that. But, yeah, that’s kind of our whole thing here at Memory Fox, but specifically the report. We actually started the idea of creating the report out of necessity, and that’s because our customers were coming to us constantly and asking us questions like, what kinds of stories can I tell if the people I serve have very sensitive stories? 

0:03:04 Carly Euler: And even those of us that had worked at nonprofits, including myself before, we hadn’t really taken time to consider that there were stories that would be potentially too sensitive or too might cause barriers for people to wanting to collect and share stories. We, you know, came from the perspective of, you know, video is great, and we should capture as many videos as possible, and that’s gonna, like, be great for your brand, and you’re gonna raise more funds. 

0:03:28 Carly Euler: But we hadn’t really thought about the ethical side until we were kind of forced to. And we thought, we have two options here. We can continue to point people in other directions to learn from other people, or we can commit to learning ourselves and elevate those other people that are working so hard in the space about ethical storytelling. And that’s what we decided to do. 

0:03:49 Taylor Wilson: Okay, cool. So I want to break this down. So ethical storytelling sounds like you guys weren’t originally going into business thinking about, like, that framework, but now it really is, like, I would say, like, a stake in the ground that you guys have put and a lot of your marketing. I really love Yalls marketing. A lot of it is around ethical storytelling. But for those who don’t quite understand what that means, there’s truly included. 

0:04:15 Taylor Wilson: What exactly is ethical storytelling? 

0:04:18 Carly Euler: Right. So that is a great question, and totally fine that it’s, you know, maybe something that people aren’t fully understanding. And that’s because it’s this wide, huge topic that has so many elements. But if you’re really just going to break it down to kind of one definition, I would say that ethical storytelling, it would be the collecting and the sharing of stories from your community without exploiting them. 

0:04:40 Carly Euler: So that sounds like, you know, when you work at a nonprofit, of course that’s what you want to do, right? Like, everyone that works at nonprofits are doing it for good reasons. You know, you’re there because you want to help your community or you want to serve whatever mission that you’re working for. So I don’t say that to kind of attack people and say, hey, you’re not doing this ethically. Like, that’s wrong. I think there really is just a big educational disconnect of how some practices, some traditional storytelling practices are maybe things that we shouldn’t be doing any longer. 

0:05:11 Taylor Wilson: What are some of those things? Like. Like what? Let’s talk examples. 

0:05:15 Carly Euler: Probably some of the most obvious things that would come to mind would be simply collecting consent when you’re telling someone’s story. We do see that a lot of nonprofits are finding we actually did this as part of our survey. I asked people, how important do you think consent is to ethical storytelling? And the individuals that took the survey, by far the most people there is, over 80% for the past two years, said that it was extremely important. 

0:05:39 Carly Euler: But then when I asked, how do you feel your organization is currently doing? How well do you think your organization is currently collecting consent? It was a very, very small percent actually said that they felt they were doing it effectively currently. So there’s a big disconnect between people wanting to do ethical storytelling by way of consent specifically and people that are actually doing it in real time. 

0:06:06 Taylor Wilson: Let’s break this down a little bit more. This is relevant because Memory Fox is a platform where people can submit their videos from like community. It’s like user centered, community centered, sort of like storytelling submissions to your platform. And then the organization, by having those sent in from donors or volunteers or advocates or whoever is like making the video, sends it to the organization and then they have it within the Memory Fox platform to be able to use in their marketing and their storytelling. 

0:06:44 Carly Euler: But one of the big features that we do have is that when somebody is going to submit a video or a photo or a written testimonial, they actually have to go through the consent process form before they move on to the actual story submission. So that’s something that we take so seriously because it goes both ways, right? You want your storyteller to feel that they are truly sharing what they are agreeing to share, where they’re agreeing to have it be shared. And then on the flip side, it helps your organization really put parameters around. 

0:07:15 Carly Euler: This is how I’m planning to share your story. Are you okay with this? And there’s a lot of liability there that nonprofits, sometimes it’s not their fault, but maybe they haven’t considered if there was like, maybe the number one thing you could do to start ethical storytelling, it would be at the very least to have a checkbox that says, I consent to having my story shared in so and so place. And that’s kind of maybe one of the easier ways that you can like really get started with ethical storytelling, whatever. 

0:07:42 Taylor Wilson: Vertical or industry you work in, if you’re in marketing or you’re, you know, like, there’s a lot of different platforms out there that will collect videos from, like, users and customers and members. Memory Fox specifically works a lot in the nonprofit industry. But I think it’s important to think about, because I can’t say that I’ve thought about that so much when asking, like, I guess maybe I’m thinking consent is I ask a client, hey, could you send us a video testimonial? 

0:08:10 Taylor Wilson: And if they do it, they’re consenting, does that count? Or do you think there’s some additional sort of, like, step people should provide? And maybe this is why having a platform like yours is helpful. 

0:08:22 Carly Euler: So actually, you bring up such a good point, because I’ve been there, right? I have worked at several nonprofits before this. And yes, what we would call that is kind of implied consent, because they did say yes, and they sent you that video. And that is something that they, you know, agreed to, right? They sent you the video. But here’s where it gets a little murky. The retention rate for people working at nonprofits is low, right? We see that nonprofit professionals leave a job every 18 months or so on average, especially fundraising professionals. 

0:08:54 Carly Euler: So what happens when that new person comes into your role? Are they able to use that story? Do they have to comb through your email to see that there was some email correspondence like, where are you noting that? And where are you making it aware to that storyteller, the original storyteller that I would like to now use your story? Is it okay if I use your story when you kind of do consent up front? You can avoid some of those roadblocks. I know for me personally, one position that I worked at, we had the policy where we would always change the identifying factors of stories so people’s names, their locations. 

0:09:29 Carly Euler: I worked at a veteran nonprofit, so we also would sometimes change, like, the military branch, certainly like the base that they were at in order to share their story, but be anonymous. But I often found that when we did that, we didn’t have a great system in place for. Has this story already been changed once? Is it going to be changed again before we share it? When was the last time we got approval to share this story? Like, what year is it from? 

0:09:56 Carly Euler: And that’s where you get into waters of like, well, how many things do you really change? And at what point is it even a true story anymore? So these are things that you need to consider when you’re thinking about your Consent. Right. 

0:10:09 Taylor Wilson: It’s. 

0:10:10 Carly Euler: There’s a lot of aspects to it that are challenging. 

0:10:14 Taylor Wilson: Well, it definitely seems like another thing to manage. So, like, having a system to make it easy I think is probably pretty important. I have actually thought about that a little bit before. Even like, let’s talk about like testimonials. So not a video, but just like a quote and you quote that person and then like you said, like, they’re not there anymore. They moved on to different things. Can you still use that quote? Should you not? Do you need to go back? Do you need to have something that says, you know, you can always use this and quote it from this company or business or organization? 

0:10:52 Taylor Wilson: Is that something that you guys looked at too? 

0:10:54 Carly Euler: Definitely. Because when people are sharing their story with you, whether it’s a quote or a video or anything, you know, they’re doing that with good intentions and they’re doing that because that’s something that they feel like they want to do. But to truly have kind of the ethical lens behind it, it’s really important to let them know up front. This is how long I’m planning to use your story. I’ll check back in after this certain time and I am planning to share it in these places. And if I am planning to share it somewhere else, I will check back in with you. 

0:11:24 Carly Euler: Of course, there’s sometimes issues with following up with people and trying to find them. If they have moved on, that can certainly be an issue. But again, maybe that’s an argument to not continue to share that story. Kind of what that really boils down to though is this idea of creating an ethical storytelling standards guide, which is something I’ve kind of recently been learning about from the research I did with the report that nonprofits that kind of have these organization wide policies in place already, where they’ve already kind of made those decisions to say, hey, we’re going to keep a story for two years and then we’re going to follow back up every other year if we want to continue to use that story, Something as simple as that. And just having that policy down is really going to make all the difference because first of all, your entire team is going to be on the same page and we won’t have any discrepancy there. 

0:12:14 Carly Euler: But second of all, your storyteller is going to know up front, okay, I can expect to hear from them. And we kind of see like that’s going to reduce the stress on your storyteller because they’re saying, okay, they really thought about it. They’re trying to be a good story steward. And these are things I’m comfortable sharing at this time. 

0:12:32 Taylor Wilson: I like that. Okay, so what are some other things that like, you would never have seen coming? And then once you’ve like dug in and started doing the research and just seeing more and more users of your platform with all different types of stories coming in, like, what are some big things that have surprised you? Maybe some moments. 

0:12:51 Carly Euler: There have been a lot of moments. So I would say kind of some of the biggest feedback, maybe anecdotally that I’ve gotten from people, just when I’m having these kind of organic conversations, people will say, okay, ethical storytelling, that sounds all well and good, you know, using strength based messaging, like referring to my community in a more positive light or only sharing positive stories. That all sounds great, but I need to raise money. 

0:13:18 Carly Euler: And people will say, well, I’ve always done it this way where I’ve collected the saddest story with the most despair and the most emotion, and just talking about someone’s trauma and getting it on camera while they’re sobbing. And that has worked for us in the past in terms of fundraising. And if they’re okay with it, why don’t we just continue to do that? So that’s kind of maybe the more traditional thing. Sometimes you still see people sharing stories that way or collecting stories that way. 

0:13:47 Carly Euler: But I want to share today that kind of. One of the really interesting things that we found in the survey portion of the report is that 42% of respondents actually have already said that they have found ethical storytelling to still be an effective means of fundraising for them. And the next closest amount was 37%. And they said, I haven’t personally had success yet with ethical storytelling, but I’ve seen it work in person. 

0:14:14 Carly Euler: So those two together are the vast majority of respondents. On the flip side, we only had 17% say that they thought that ethical storytelling would not raise them more funds, like it would remain the same or less. So it’s really promising to see that fundraisers are really kind of coming around to the idea of maybe ditching a few of those old fashioned ways of fundraising and storytelling and seeing the actual results are still being positive for them. 

0:14:42 Taylor Wilson: Well, I have to imagine it’s like it creates a more frequent touch point. So like when it comes to fundraising, like it creates an extra touch point where you’re going back to them and like having a conversation, keeping them engaged, even if it’s just, how are you doing? Are we good to still use this? It’s like you’re Just staying in front of them and it’s going to start a conversation about other stuff. 

0:15:03 Carly Euler: Oh, yeah. And when you go check back in with people, you might get an update to that story. They might even have a different view on their life now and a different type of milestone that they’ve hit that you wouldn’t have known about if you didn’t go back and check back in with them. That’s. That’s a really good point. 

0:15:20 Taylor Wilson: I like this because it’s like a mindset shift. Like, at first I’m hearing, like, oh, God, another thing I have to do. And, well, what if those people now, like, won’t let us use it? It’s so hard to get them, you know, so, like, people could be thinking that. But really, if you flip that on its head and you’ve got, let’s like not approach it from that kind of more negative space mindset, and let’s like, think of a more positive space mindset. It’s like, yeah, they might have an update that’s huge. 

0:15:46 Taylor Wilson: That’s like, better. Or they might say, hey, thanks for checking in with me, and it’s another engagement point. And then they’re like, let me tell you what I’m up to now. And then it’s another way to just cultivate that relationship. 

0:15:59 Carly Euler: Yeah. I mean, you see organizations all the time sharing stories. They’ll say, oh, it’s our 50th anniversary, but here’s the story of the first client we helped, or here’s the story story of our first program and how it launched with the first family that we worked with. And those are really compelling stories, you know, and then they send those updates. I mean, you see that with for profits. You see that with nonprofits. Like, that’s a really interesting story to tell. 

0:16:22 Carly Euler: But I think also kind of what you’re getting at is this idea of, again, sort of, this is a traditional way of storytelling where you would have a story from somebody who participated in a program and you use it for fundraising. So that’s like a one to one relationship. And now we’re seeing you have all these types of stories. You can collect. You have program participants, certainly, but you also have your volunteers, your board members, your donors, your staff, your community members, the people who are donating. You have all these people who are a part of your community in a different way, and they all have great stories to tell as well. 

0:17:02 Taylor Wilson: And. 

0:17:02 Carly Euler: And then I know, Taylor, you’re very good at getting on camera and doing videos and stuff, but the idea that you don’t do that just for one goal. Right. I mean, there’s also all these other goals that are beyond fundraising. It’s education, it’s brand awareness. It’s actually performing your mission. There’s a thousand reasons why you want to collect a different story and share a different story for a different type of outcome, too. 

0:17:25 Taylor Wilson: Before we close out, I want to ask you something, because I like to bring in, like, new areas of marketing. Not always new, but just like an air. A specific area of marketing. So y’all really sort of. Okay. I said earlier, this is just the way I think of it. You kind of put your stake in the sand when y’all started really shifting towards this, like, ethical storytelling messaging in your marketing. 

0:17:51 Taylor Wilson: Do you mind sharing, like, the results of your marketing since you really consistently leaned into that messaging? 

0:18:01 Carly Euler: Yeah, definitely. It has been a big differentiator for us in terms of other technology platforms that are doing a similar thing to Memory Fox. Our whole team is super on board with it. We all like to learn. We go to webinars. We like to learn from people. We’re all in the learning process as well, internally and externally. We are still getting on board, and it’s been like, a really positive experience for us to kind of continue learning as a team. 

0:18:29 Carly Euler: Definitely, like, in terms of getting new people interested in Memory Fox or people understanding kind of what we stand for, I think we made this report, and we’ve now made our second report, and these have been a great way where people can kind of get a foot in the door, kind of understand some new things, that maybe they’re doing a few things, but maybe they’re interested in expanding ethical storytelling, or they’re maybe interviewing a certain way that they want to make some changes. It’s kind of been a pretty great way to start a lot of conversations with nonprofits, especially those with really sensitive missions, with missions where they are particularly sensitive in that they must have anonymous stories, must have special considerations. 

0:19:13 Carly Euler: It’s really kind of opened a lot of doors for us, and it’s been overall a very positive experience. 

0:19:18 Taylor Wilson: I think it’s a good use case, a good example. I think y’all have really taken off, and it’s a good example of, like, people talk about, like, niching down. It’s a bit of a way to niche down, like, you know, and like your messaging, you know, and just to kind of claim this is where we’re going, and then really consistent. One of the things I want to say and I admire about y’all, y’all are one. Y’all are a small team. I’m like, you get a lot done, and I’m really impressed. 

0:19:46 Taylor Wilson: And two y’all are so consistent in that messaging. But also, like, okay, you’ve got. For people watching the video, you’ve always. All of you always have the plaid shirt on. I never see you without the plaid shirt. I’m guessing you wear something other than that plaid shirt, Carly, but I wouldn’t know it. It’s a good vibe, and it’s a good, like, consistent brand experience. 

0:20:11 Carly Euler: Well, I feel the same way about your brand. I think everything you do is so fun and engaging. And so we all work remotely, you know, our whole team. We’re across the country. So when we get to be in person with people, that is our chance to, first of all, talk to people for, like, the first time in months. But it’s really a chance to get to explain how much fun we have at work, why we really love what we do. 

0:20:35 Carly Euler: And kind of the number one way to do that is to draw people into our booth. And we do that with some fun branding. We have cute boxes. We like to. You know, we’re just fun people that really do believe in what we do. So it’s definitely. If you ever see any of our orange flannels at a conference, stop by. It’s somebody on my team. We can have a great chat about storytelling, about what you do at your work, about your ethical storytelling goals. Like, everything starts with a great conversation. 

0:21:02 Taylor Wilson: Yeah. I think I need you to design my conference. Like, my. Like, what should my swag be? I’ve got. We’ve got pretty cool purple sweatshirts. I’ve thought about, like, a whole purple tracksuit or something like that before. That’s pretty all in. But I don’t know. I might pick your brain on that one day. 

0:21:18 Carly Euler: Well, we’ve been doing lately, we’ve been doing around March Madness. Our team is super into basketball. We’re super into sports in general, but we got super into basketball. So we did, like, this fun initiative that was March Madness related. And I’m thinking I might need to get, like, a Memory Fox basketball jersey. Maybe that would match your tracksuit. 

0:21:38 Taylor Wilson: Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it would. Exactly. Yeah. Just don’t sign me up for any bracket. I’m not good at sports. 

0:21:47 Carly Euler: Cool. 

0:21:48 Taylor Wilson: Well, Carly, if people want to get in touch with you or learn more about Memory Fox, what’s the best way to do that? 

0:21:53 Carly Euler: Sure. Well, our website is memory fox IO. You can find me on TikTok and LinkedIn, and then you can find Memory Fox on all platforms. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. You know we’re everywhere. So definitely give us a follow and you’ll see my face everywhere because I post a lot of videos so you’ll know it’s me. 

0:22:12 Taylor Wilson: She’s your girl. 

0:22:13 Taylor Wilson: If you want to learn some great stuff in marketing and about video storytelling and ethical storytelling. So Carly, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much. I always like talking to you. You’re always a joy and I hope this was helpful to those listening today. Until next time, I know you got a lot to get done, so go get your good shizzle done now people. 

0:22:35 Taylor Wilson: Well, hey there. 

0:22:37 Taylor Wilson: That was fun. 

0:22:38 Taylor Wilson: I love how much mind blowing and mind opening shizzle our guests bring to us with every single episode. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. Make sure to hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast player so that you don’t miss a beat of the Talking Shizzle podcast. And if you’re listening on Apple, be sure to let us know what you thought and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from our listeners so that we can bring you all the good juicy business growth shizzle that you’d like to hear about. 

0:23:13 Taylor Wilson: Be sure to get in touch with us and follow along at creativeshizzle.com or shoot us an email at hello@reativeshizzle.com now until next time, we hope you go get your big shizzle done.